WEBVTT - Simulation Argument (Epilogue) 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:08.799 There is one other thing. I'm including it here is 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.240 an epilogue because the series is over, its message has 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:16.160 been sent. But this other thing does tie into existential 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.200 risks in some pretty interesting ways, so I wanted to 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.720 include it. I'll just leave it here and you can 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:28.320 decide how you feel about it. Back in two thousand three, 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.320 Nick Bostrom expanded on a concept that had been around 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.400 at least since the classical Greeks first recorded their thoughts 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.000 on it, the idea that what we experience as reality 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:42.680 isn't real the followers of Plato discussed in the Academy 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.280 at Athens, and then in the sixteen hundreds it was 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.720 taken up and examined by Renee Descartes, the Enlightenment philosopher 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:54.320 who famously identified that he was because he thought. Descartes 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:57.440 wondered if perhaps we exist in a reality that's actually 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:02.160 a dream. After considering his own experience with dreams, Descartes 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:04.640 decided that if we do exist in a dream, we 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.920 would never be able to tell. What he experienced in 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.200 dreams seemed like reality to him just as much as 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.880 reality did in waking life. Without any indication to distinguish 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.560 between the two, we would never really be able to 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:25.520 tell the difference. It wasn't until two thousand three, however, 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.840 when Nick Bostrom wrote his paper entitled Are You Living 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.000 in a Computer Simulation? That anyone went to the trouble 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.400 of formalizing the idea that what we consider reality is 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:39.600 an actually basement reality. Bostrom hit upon a way to 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.960 examine the nature of reality, and it's based on whether 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.039 we expect to make it through the great filter. He 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.920 called it the simulation argument, which supposes that there's a 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.400 very good chance and we are not actually real life humans, 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:58.240 that instead we are simulated humans living in a simulated universe. 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.880 So Nick Bolstrom refined this into a proper logical argument 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.080 to show that you need to kind of accept that 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.880 either we are going to go extinct really soon, or 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.120 where for some reason, our post human descember will never 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.760 ever run simulations, maybe because very impossible, or because they're 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.120 very very moral or have some coordination, or we are 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:26.280 almost certainly in a simulation. If you didn't recognize that voice, 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.600 that was Ander Sandberg, Bostrom's colleague at the Future of 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:34.640 Humanity Institute. Being an argument, the simulation argument doesn't provide 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.639 evidence one way or the other, which is beautiful because 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.280 that leads it to each person to be persuaded by 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.640 it or not. But to get into it, we first 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:50.359 have to agree on a couple of points. Remember when 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.120 humanities cosmic endowment came up all the way back in 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.560 episode three. That's the idea that if we are the 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.560 only intelligent life in the universe, as it seems we are, 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.960 then once we spread off of Earth, all the matter 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.200 and energy that we can get our hands on before 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.200 it expands out of our reach forever is ours to 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.120 put to use for whatever amazing things we can come 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:16.040 up with. If we managed to successfully navigate the existential 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.440 risks that are coming our way and pass through the 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.240 great Filter, then it seems likely that our descendants humans 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.360 in the future will use some of that cosmic endowment 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.600 to create massive computers. Perhaps we will use nanobots to 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.560 deconstruct planets to use as raw materials for those massive computers, 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.560 and we'll build Dyson's feares to capture energy at the 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:42.200 source of a star to power them. That our descendants 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.600 will have massive computers seems like a fairly tame prediction 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.120 as far as predictions about the future go. Think about 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.720 how important computing is to our civilization today. It's a 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.320 pretty good bet that as we continue moving along our 0:03:55.360 --> 0:04:00.320 technological path, computing will grow ever more important, and should 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.000 we end up a post biological society, computers will become 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.600 even more important. They will provide the support structure for 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:12.880 our very being. So if we're agreed that if we 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.480 managed to save the world, are descendants will go on 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.000 to have vast amounts of computation available to them, we 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.520 can move on to the next point that they will 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.600 use some of that computing power to run simulations of 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:30.120 us their ancestors. They could have any reason to run 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.320 simulations of human history for fun, like the reason we 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:38.120 play the sims or Age of Empires as a sociological 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:42.480 or anthropological model, or as part of an educational exhibit 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.800 that celebrates the time that we save the future of 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.040 the entire human race and intelligent life in the universe 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.599 from near extinction. Whatever their reason, we can imagine that 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:59.600 in the future they might run what Bostrom calls ancestor simulations. Importantly, 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.120 one the beautiful things that makes the simulation argument persuasive 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.599 is that it doesn't matter when this will happen. The 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.400 argument puts no time constraints on any of this. Our 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.880 descendants can build those computers and run those simulations a 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.880 thousand years from now or a million. It doesn't matter, 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.280 just so long as we can agree that at some 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:25.200 point they will. So if we're agreed that our descendants 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.360 will at some point in the future build massive computers 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.080 and use some of that ridiculous amount of computing power 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.839 available to them to run simulations of human history, we 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:42.360 can now enter the simulation argument. It goes something like this, 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.080 Either we are living in a computer simulation run by 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:50.000 our descendants in the future, or we're not. If we're 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.640 not living in a simulation, then that means we are 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.080 what we tend to think. We are members of the 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.960 real life human race, living in basement or real reality 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.960 in the twenty first century, about three and a half 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.600 billion years on from the origin of life on Earth. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.880 But as plainly obvious as that may seem, the simulation 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:15.560 argument raises a question why aren't we simulated? Bostrom identified 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.039 a couple of possible reasons. One is that our descendants 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.719 are fully capable of simulating us, they just choose not to. 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.960 It's possible that our ancestors won't run simulations because they're 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.120 computing power is far too precious for even a minute 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.520 fraction of it to be allocated to something potentially frivolous 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.159 like an ancestor simulation. Or maybe the humans of the 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.880 future are too moral to run an ancestor simulation, that 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.640 the possibility that suffering could arise in the universe they create, 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.120 like what we experience in our own universe now, is 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.720 just too much of a moral gamble for their taste. 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.920 In other words, they don't want the karmic mark against 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:59.440 them for creating another universe where suffering lives. Or perhaps 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.719 running ancestor simulations is just too hard, and of course 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.520 it's always possible, they just don't feel like it. But 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.600 take a closer look at this possibility. It shares the 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.400 same fatal flaw with arguments that look to solve the 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:18.160 family paradox. It presumes that not one, not one single 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:22.679 future human decided to build a simulation of historic humans. 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.360 Not a single person figured out a way to allocate 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.480 some of that vast amount of computing power to simulate 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.400 the universe and humanity in it. Not a single person 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.800 came across a scientific study that would benefit from a 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.680 model of human history, not a single person was curious 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:45.360 enough of the quadrillions or possibly sex to sillions of 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.200 humans left to come, who will populate a span of 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.680 time lasting billions of years. Not a single one of 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:56.840 them created an ancestor simulation. That's how it must be, 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.080 because all it takes is one for one person in 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.760 the future to run one single ancestor simulation, and the 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:10.840 simulation argument is activated. But there's another possibility as well. 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.960 Perhaps no ancestor simulations are run in the future because 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.720 there are no humans around to run them. Here's where 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.920 the simulation argument ties into existential risks if we're not 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:27.480 simulated humans. In a very strange way, the simulation argument 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.360 gives us a glimpse across the long expanse of time 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.760 into our future. When we look ahead, it shows us 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.800 that there are no humans around to run simulations of us. 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.920 There are no humans who managed to spread from Earth 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.760 and into the universe to put that cosmic endowment to use. 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.600 It tells us that we will fail that in the future. 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:53.760 We didn't make it through the Great Filter. But if 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.680 you think we will make it through the Great Filter, 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.080 and if you're not convinced that not a single one 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.800 of our descendants will run a simulation, and of humanity, 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.280 you're in luck. There's a third option that we are 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:13.720 simulated humans living in a simulated universe. Yes, anybody can 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.520 simply say that we are living in a simulation, just 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:18.680 like anyone can say that we are living in what 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.840 we call real reality. Neither one means anything. They're both 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.120 just assertions. But the idea that we're living in a 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.480 simulated reality actually has a leg up over the idea 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:36.280 that we're living in real reality thanks to probability, lovable, unpredictable, programmable. 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:40.760 It's the Sims. Back at the beginning of the year 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.760 two thousand, the software company Maxis released The Sims, a 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:49.800 life simulation game where you, the player, controls individual simulated people. 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.520 The Sims. As one reviewer put it, as a celebration 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:57.320 of the mundane Sims go about their lives, they go 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:00.680 to work, they clean their toilets, and yes, they die. 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:06.120 The Sims became an enormously popular game. Between two thousand 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.160 and two thousand ten, a hundred and twenty five million 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.160 copies of The SIMS and its successive editions were sold 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:16.000 around the world. Each time one of those people brought 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.880 their CD RAM home, loaded it into the tray, and 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.080 booted up the software. A new iteration of the SIMS 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:26.440 universe was created. It was the same universe. It followed 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.800 the same rules, the same program, It followed the same 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.280 physics and logic, and the SIMS all navigated their universe 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.480 made up of the same set of possibilities, but each 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:41.120 iteration was distinct and different. Each one was a discreet 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.240 version of the SIMS universe, and we can expect something 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.920 along the same lines with any simulations our ancestors might run. 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.160 Whether it's a scientific model for an anthropological study of history, 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.440 or whether it's the software of a popular game, whether 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.760 it's a class project. Each time that simulation is run, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.720 a new iteration of our simulated human universe is created. 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.480 Say that at some point in the future, again, it 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.480 doesn't matter when, but at some point across the billions 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.480 of years, among the quadrillions of people left to come, 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.920 there's a ten year period where an ancestor simulation software 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.920 that is equally as popular as the SIMS is created 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:25.120 and sold. As all those future humans load their simulations, 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.120 a new iteration of our simulated universe is born, each 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.080 following the same guidelines, the same code, each taking radically 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.400 different courses within the same set of prescribed rules, the 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.800 same set of physics, as it were. If we're agreed 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:44.160 that our descendants will run ancestor simulations of us, and 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.840 that we don't have any frame of reference to distinguish 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.560 the simulation from real reality, and in the future a 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.880 hundred and twenty five million iterations of that simulated universe 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.600 or run, then you and I and everyone alive in 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.840 our universe has a one and one than twenty five 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.800 million chants that we are actual humans, a one and 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.040 a hundred and twenty five million chance that we are 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.439 not simulated, Or, to put it somewhat less encouragingly, there 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:17.319 is a ninety nine point chance that we are simulated 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:21.559 humans living in an ancestor simulation being run in the future. 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.680 Because there was one iteration of humans in real life, 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:28.920 there is a chance that we are members of that 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.400 genuine human race as we'd like to think of ourselves. 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.959 But well, here's Nick Bostro, it's a little bit as 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.440 if we ares s species. I thought we were Napoleon, right, 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:41.400 So there are a lot of people who have thought 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.080 that we're Napoleon. Has only been one actually Napoleon. There 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.040 have been many more people that thought that we're Napoleon. 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.320 Then actually we're in that pogum, And say, if you 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.240 think you're kind of an emperor of world historic importance, 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.720 you know, a chances are maybe you're actually a lunatic 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.880 in and insane asylum. Because so many simulations are running 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:00.920 in the future, given that we have no firm of 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.800 reference to tell us any differences between our reality and 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.920 basement reality, that utter lack of signs that we live 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.640 in a dream, as Descartes suggested, the chances are vastly 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.679 greater that we are simulated rather than real. There's just 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.880 simply been more simulated humans than real ones, and being 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.920 members of one group or the other, the chances state 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.600 quite plainly that it's like clear we're members of the 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.920 simulated group. You can mess with the numbers either way 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.920 to make the chances go up or down. Say that 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.560 ancestor simulation is way more popular than the sims ever was, 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.360 and an equal amount of copies are sold each decade 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.040 for a hundred years. That would mean that we had 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.360 one chance in over a billion of being a human, 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.600 and so on. Each new iteration of our simulated universe 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.880 lowers the chances that we are real. But like I 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.400 said before, even just one ancestor simulation run in the 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.960 future activates the simulation argument eve. And if just once 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.080 in the whole future history of the human race, only 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:08.240 one iteration of our simulated universe is run, we still 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:12.280 have even odds that were simulated. If we make it 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.840 through the great filter, and our descendants run ancestor simulations 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.480 of us, we have at best a fifty chance of 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:36.600 being real humans. I should say that if it does 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.800 turn out that we are simulated, our simulation could have 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.120 been built by any number of things. It's possible the 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.160 people who created us aren't future humans at all, but 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.680 some other intelligent life entirely. It could be a race 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.400 of Martian ancestors that real humans diverged from eons ago, 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.360 an intelligent machine, super intelligent mice looking for the answer 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.480 to the meaning of life. It's even possible that our 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.080 universe follows a more basic set of physics than what 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:08.600 governs the universe. Our universe is stimulated within. Perhaps there 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.320 never was a one true race of real life humans, 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.200 anymore than there was a real life race of sims. 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.120 But the thing about the simulation argument is that it 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.760 calls for the least amount of speculation, the least amount 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.760 of unreality. For it to be right, all it requires 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.960 is that our descendants will run simulations of humanity in 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:33.160 the future. It's rather elegant in its simplicity. That's what 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:39.360 makes it convincing. Even still, there are, as you may imagine, 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:44.080 a number of objections to the simulation argument. Some people 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:47.480 simply detest it on its face, dismissing it out of 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.040 hand is nothing more than material for late night conversations 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:55.040 in college dorms. But others engage with it seriously, and 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:59.320 they raise legitimate issues. The thing is, it seems that 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.280 every object action leveled against the simulation argument either imposes 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.960 unnecessary time constraints or is just a simple failure of imagination. 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.760 If this is the first you've heard of the simulation argument, 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.920 at this point, you might be looking around you closely 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.960 examining the edges of things, seeing if you can tell 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:23.440 that the world is fake. Don't bother. The simulation argument 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.960 doesn't change a single thing about our universe. The physics 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.960 are the same as ever. Being persuaded that we live 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.400 in a simulation doesn't unlock some greater understanding of our 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.040 reality such that we can alter it in ways that 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.760 we couldn't before. There's no pill to choose. There won't 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:43.360 be any flying around or walking through walls, nor should 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.640 your morality be altered. Your mother is just as real 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.040 as she was before, and she would be just as 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.080 disappointed as before if you decided to start a life 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.800 of crime because we're simulated, So why does it matter. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.120 The court system is real too, and you would be 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.080 imprisoned by it just as sure as ever. And when 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.320 you explain to them that none of this is real, 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:06.280 that they aren't real, the car you set fire too 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.600 isn't real, that the whole universe isn't real, the mental 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.119 health system will be just as happy as ever to 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.280 lock you away in a padded room indefinitely, the walls 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.480 of which you would find you were fully enabled to 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.680 will yourself to walk through using your new found awareness 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:25.840 of the simulated basis of our universe. Our universe is 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.359 as real as it ever was. The only thing the 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:37.879 simulation argument can change is your perspective. One common objection 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.960 to the simulation argument kind of falls under this umbrella 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:45.439 of misunderstanding. It goes something like this, how could a 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:50.560 simulated banana or simulated apple, or a simulated cheeseburger possibly 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.600 provide nutrients to us. How could it sustain and nourish us, 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:59.080 alleviate our hunger, make us feel full. It's kind of 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.080 like the hard problem of consciousness, the puzzle of how 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:06.679 we get from neurons firing two subjective experience. Sure, you 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.800 can simulate a banana, but you're simulating a banana. It's 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.240 on a computer. And those of us who are looking 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:14.640 at the banana, no, we are looking at a banana 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.040 pictured on a computer. How can we account for the 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:22.000 experience of interacting with a banana, holding one, peeling it, 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.439 and needing it, of being allergic to it? How do 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.520 we get from a simulated banana to the experience of 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:33.280 a banana that is indistinguishable from reality. The answer is 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.919 rather simple. We're not simulating that banana or cheeseburger or whatever, 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.439 so it's not a simulation to us. It's made of 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.399 the same stuff that we are. It's no more fake 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.960 than you, You're no more real than it. We share 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:52.359 the same reality. The banana isn't a simulated banana in 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.080 our universe. It's just a banana, so it's subject to 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.359 the same rules that we are on the quantum level. 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.040 Those bananas are made up of energetic vibrations just like us. 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.240 They form particles that are held together by the fundamental forces, 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.520 just like us, and they form larger and more stable 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.840 structures that increase in size and complexity up to the 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.080 level of what we think of as a banana. And 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.800 when we eat that particular package of energetic vibration, it 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.160 interacts with our own energetic vibrations in such a way 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.440 that we experience taste, in the sensation of deliciousness, We 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.520 experience feeling full if we eat too many of them, 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.639 and our bodies break them down into smaller parts, and 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:40.160 we use those parts for energy, same as ever. Banana objections, 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.639 as we'll call them, are rooted in the idea that 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.080 we exist in some different reality from the banana. To 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.680 be clear, the simulation argument does not suppose that there's 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.119 some real version of you elsewhere. What we experience as 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.520 our universe, bananas and all, is a simulation to someone else. 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.480 To us, it is our full reality. So to answer 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.240 the banana objection, the banana can satiate and sustain us 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:10.399 because it's as real as we are. Other objections go 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.880 a little deeper. How could we possibly simulate the universe 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.520 on anything approaching a detail fine grained enough to be 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:21.560 indistinguishable from the original. There are a couple of answers 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.639 to this one. First, we can't. We don't have the 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.880 computing power to faithfully render the universe in that detail. 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:33.480 But in this objection we run into an unnecessary time constraint. 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.560 While we can't faithfully reproduce the universe, there's a pretty 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.879 good chance that our descendants will be able to. We 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.440 Those of us alive today are already on track to 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:50.919 doing this. For the last several years, humans have been 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.400 able to produce accurate simulations of quarks and glue ones 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.240 and the strong nuclear force that binds them together. These 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.680 models are not infinitely press size, but they're faithful enough 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.320 to reality that a simulated scientists living in the simulated 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.359 universe where the protons exist would have no way to 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:12.560 distinguish their unreality. They would just be protons that behaven 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:16.879 appear exactly like any other protons. The models that we 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:21.280 can produce today simulate an exceedingly tiny portion of our universe. 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.919 They're on the scale of femptometers, about a quadrillionth of 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.119 a meter. But the models show a proof of concept 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:32.359 that simulating the universe is possible, and they also show 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.840 that the human race already has a desire to simulate 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:41.080 the universe. Already at this early stage in modeling the universe, 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:44.280 we found that there are problems future humans will run 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.960 into when it comes to scaling up those models. It's 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.600 pretty obvious that modeling the entire universe would be a very, 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:56.359 very difficult undertaking, but difficulties can be worked out over time. 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:01.320 The problem comes when we reach impossibilities, and in two 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:05.840 thousand seventeen, a pair of researchers from Oxford University found 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:09.439 an impossibility that seems to show pretty conclusively that we 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:14.359 do not live in a simulated universe. The researchers found 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.160 that it would be physically impossible to simulate at least 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:21.160 one aspect of the universe, something called the quantum Hall effect, 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.959 which describes the way that electrons bounce between energy states 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:27.920 called a quantum leap in the presence of a magnetic 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:32.240 field and extremely low temperatures. It occupies a arcane a 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.440 corner of particle physics as there is, But the point 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.880 is the researchers found that to accurately simulate the effect. 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:42.919 The computational power required doubles each time you add a 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.480 new particle to the model, rather than increasing the power 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:51.000 needed by one unit, it grows exponentially, so within just 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.639 a few hundred particles, the operations per second required by 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.320 a computer to run a simulation of the quantum Hall 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:00.480 effect grows to a total beyond the number of atoms 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.480 there are in the universe, around ten to the eighty 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:08.320 second power. Not only is that number vastly more operations 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.800 than our computers can perform today, this also presents a 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:16.520 major technical issue. We need electrons to perform the computations 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.439 that create the simulated model. In the first place, electrons 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:23.080 are what we use to carry information in our computers, 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:26.480 and as we simulate more and more particles subject to 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.240 the quantum Hall effect, we will start to require a 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:32.400 substantial portion of the electrons that are part of those 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.240 ten to the eighty second power atoms in the universe. 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:39.480 And as you may know, those electrons are otherwise occupied 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:43.200 performing other functions like making up all the matter in 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:48.560 the universe, which means that eventually it becomes physically impossible 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:51.840 to simulate the quantum Hall effect and since we can 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:54.879 observe the quantum Hall effect in our own universe, we 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:59.720 can reason that our universe is not a simulation. But 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:04.480 this presents a failure of imagination, not an impossibility. Indeed, 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.240 the researchers who made the discovery noted that they're finding 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:10.240 only showed that we couldn't possibly be simulated within a 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:13.680 traditional computer, the type that we have available to us now, 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:18.000 the kind that uses electrons. They also pointed out that 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.000 we can probably safely presume that the humans of the 0:24:21.040 --> 0:24:24.359 future would be simulating us on better computers than what 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:28.200 we're using today. I've said it before, and I'll say 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:30.560 it again. If it turns out that the humans of 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:33.440 the future don't have better computers than we have now, 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:36.159 it would be one of the more surprising things in 0:24:36.240 --> 0:24:40.880 this entire series. And indeed, we are working on better 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:46.119 computers already, specifically, quantum computers, the type of computer that 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:50.159 processes information not gleaned from the movement of electrons, but 0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:55.240 instead from the interaction of elementary particles, which exponentially opens 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:58.680 up a computer's capacity to perform calculations in a single 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:02.399 second and meet lee transfers, rendering the quantum Hall effect 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:05.960 and a simulation from the impossible column over to the 0:25:06.000 --> 0:25:16.080 column marked possible. We've already talked about that to accurately 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:19.280